KYIV — Ukraine and the United States will start a military exercise involving more than 30 countries in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine on Monday, despite Russian calls to cancel the drills.
Sea Breeze 2021 follows a rise in tensions between NATO and Moscow, which said last week it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea. Britain rejected Russia’s account of the incident.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and says it is Russian territory, but the peninsula is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.
Russia’s embassy in Washington called last week for the d…
Keep on reading: Ukraine, US to start Black Sea military drills despite Russian protest